The present invention relates to radiation detectors and, more particularly, to a novel solid state X-ray detectors and to arrays thereof.
Accurate measurement of radiation flux intensity is required in many applications. In particular, the measurement of X-ray flux intensity in computerized tomography systems, and particularly in very high resolution tomography systems for non-destructive evaluation of mechanical parts, requires a very high degree of accuracy. Increased accuracy is also beneficial in more conventional X-ray imaging systems for medical, industrial or other measurement tasks.
Generally, X-ray flux intensity is acurately measured by utilization of one of two physical processes; a solid state scintillator element may be utilized to convert the X-radiation to emit a luminescent intensity to be measured by an additional device, such as a photomultiplier tube or a silicon photosensitive device; or a gaseous X-radiation photoconductor, such as xenon and the like, is utilized to provide a changing induced conductance therein responsive to the degree of X-radiation ionization. Both principle forms of X-ray flux intensity measuring devices are relatively complex and it is desirable to provide radiation flux detectors of increased simplicity and capable of forming compact arrays thereof, particularly for increasing the accuracy of computerized tomography systems.